rf_kill problem on thinkpad Z60m

[Mark Poolman]

Binary package hint: linux-image-2.6.15-26-386

Wireless internet worked "out of the box" (dapper pre-installed by vendor) but abruptly stopped working after a couple of hours, and nothing I can do will get it going again. It appears that the ipw2200 hardware rf_kill is stuck on. The following may be of use:

Typical from /var/log/kern.log:
Sep 8 12:06:34 localhost kernel: [17181802.404000] ipw2200: Radio Frequency Kill Switch is On:
Sep 8 12:06:34 localhost kernel: [17181802.404000] Kill switch must be turned off for wireless networking to work.

From a freshly booted machine:

root@zeitgeist:~# iwconfig eth1
eth1 radio off ESSID:off/any
          Mode:Managed Channel:0 Access Point: Not-Associated
          Bit Rate=0 kb/s Tx-Power=off Sensitivity=8/0
          Retry limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

root@zeitgeist:~# cat /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/0000\:14\:02.0/rf_kill
2
root@zeitgeist:~# echo -n 0 > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/0000\:14\:02.0/rf_kill
root@zeitgeist:~# cat /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/0000\:14\:02.0/rf_kill
2
/********* now press Fn/F5 *********/
root@zeitgeist:~# iwconfig eth1
eth1 no wireless extensions.
root@zeitgeist:~# cat /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/0000\:14\:02.0/rf_kill
0

What is strange is that according to http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/README.ipw2200:
  rf_kill
 read -
 0 = RF kill not enabled (radio on)
 1 = SW based RF kill active (radio off)
 2 = HW based RF kill active (radio off)

Many thanks for reading,

Mark

[Mark Poolman (mgpoolman)]

Also submitted to bugzilla
http://bughost.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=1126

Mark

[Mark Poolman (mgpoolman)]

OK, very sorry, it's not a driver bug, I'd accidently moved a small slider on the front of the case which duplicates Fn/F5.

Although I feel a bit silly about it, it's
a truly awful piece of ergonomics: a black switch on a background
located in a position that you can't see, but can easily brush against,
that duplicates and over-rides another more visible control with
equivalent function, and is not mentioned anywhere in the paper
documentation (at least that I received).

Is there any possiblity of enhancing the driver to ignore or overide it (or at least put a message in the logs) ? I can't believe that I'm the only person whose going to get caught out by this - or maybe I am ... :-(

Thanks for the attention,

[marcogoni (cogoni)]

It was a user error so I am marking it as invalid

[Mark Poolman (mgpoolman)]

Sure, it was my error, and I reported it as such ages ago.

I thought this was long closed.

On Mon, 2007-10-08 at 15:42 +0000, marcogoni wrote:
> It was a user error so I am marking it as invalid
>
> ** Changed in: linux-source-2.6.15 (Ubuntu)
> Status: New => Invalid
>
--
Dr. Mark Poolman
Senior Research Fellow
Cell Systems Modelling Group
School of Life Science
Oxford Brookes University